cat videos
by elmccabe
Summary: a modern AU of James and Lily and the marauders and how they were all friends before Jily happened. One shot
It started off because she had the wrong number.

She had been trying to send her cousin a video of a cat jumping from rooftop to rooftop and accidently typed an 8 in the number instead of a 9 so he got the video instead. Turns out they only lived a few blocks away.

He was so intrigued by the cat girl he asked her to meet up for ice cream in the middle ground between their houses. She only said yes because he promised to buy her 3 scoops worth. She showed up. She was all bunches of freckles, light skin, wild green eyes, and dark red messy hair. He was long limbs he hadn't grown into yet, hair as dark as night, glasses that always slipped off his nose, and weirdly long fingers. She told him her name was Lily and he said it was fine, but not as special as James. She sent him a cat video every Tuesday at promptly 4 o'clock for the next year.

She texted him a week later when her parents weren't home and she accidently flooded their basement. He brought Sirius over and the water was up to her shins when they finally made it. When they asked how she managed to do this she mumbled something about trying to fill up an inflatable pool and never turned the hose off. When the boys were finally done laughing she dragged them into the water. Her parents found them screaming in horrified panic later that night.

He didn't talk to her for a week when he found out she liked Led Zeppelin better than The Rolling Stones. She had told him his opinion was a piece of shit and he said that she could eat her words because she didn't know shit about music. He only talked to her again because she went on a hunger strike and her parents called asking him to forgive her for whatever she had done.

She read exactly 2 books a week except he never figured out how. She was always doing schoolwork or hanging out in town with her friends and him. She said reading was like taking a trip when you can't in real life and he found her reading upside on her bed when he came over one afternoon. He tugged at her hair to get her attention and she chucked her book at his face.

She called him the biggest prat she'd ever known. He called her a stuck up prissy. They made Peter officiate a boxing fight between them but Remus stepped in and forbade them from doing it. He did, however, let them pie each other in the face as a compromise the next day.

He showed up at her public school one day to bring her lunch and her friends laughed at Lily for hanging out with a private school bloke. A boy came to up to Lily and asked if she was shagging James and James punched him in the face for it. Lily rolled her eyes but she was the one who got detention. He sent her daisies to apologize. She threw them out her window.

One day he went to hang out with Remus and there she was on his couch. She was watching a movie with his three best friends and no one invited him. He called them all traitors. Lily said if he calmed she would let him pick the next one. He made them all watch Pride and Prejudice and they made a pact to never let him pick again. He sat on the floor in front of her the entire movie and when it was over she had corn rowed his hair. He wore it to school like that for an entire week.

He asked her to prom and she took the mickey out of him for it but she still showed up. She wore a backless black dress and curled her hair. She wore red high top converse though and let James put a corsage on her wrist. He swore she was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen. She requested Led Zeppelin at the dance to piss him off but he danced to it anyway. She danced will all four Marauders and declared she was going to marry Remus Lupin someday for his superior waltzing skills.

He drank a coke every morning for breakfast and she informed him his teeth were going to fall out. He drank another one. One day he came home from school and found 87 cokes because she had known him for 87 days. She drank one for him but spit it out and told him she could feel her teeth dissolving.

One day his parents interrupted them while they were doing homework to ask if they were dating. Lily laughed so hard she had to go to the bathroom. James rolled his eyes and asked his mum if she really thought he would ever date a girl like Lily. His parents believed them but still told all his relatives he was dating the most delightful redhead.

She came to one of his soccer games but got kicked out after 10 minutes for screaming about James' gangly body too loudly. She waited outside the fence for him with Peter and they chucked rocks at the school's gym. James declared no girl would ever want to date him after what Lily said and Lily informed him no girls wanted to date him anyway.

He and Sirius met Petunia and wondered if that was the reason sometimes Lily was crying when they came over. Petunia called them all lazy entitled brats and Sirius told her that her boyfriend was fatter than any whale he'd ever heard of. Lily kicked them out for causing more problems between her and her sister and didn't talk to them for days. This time they went on a hunger strike and she only relented when they promised to buy her ice cream whenever she asked.

Peter's dad got tickets for all of them to go to the Opera so they would "spend less time getting in trouble". All of their parent's adopted Lily into their friend group without a question. They dressed up nicely and sat in a box overlooking the stage. Lily flirted with a boy sitting by them and James wondered why his heart hurt so much watching it happen. Remus told the boy Lily was engaged to him and how dare he flirt with his woman. The boy left shortly after. Lily returned the favor by telling every girl Remus met for the next month that they were engaged so they better back off.

No one asked her to her spring dance because she spent so much time with those blokes from private school so why don't they take her. Lily told Peter she didn't mind because she probably wasn't going to go anyway. On the night of the dance she had 4 stunning dates dressed in full tuxedos and 4 corsages. Every girl in the school was jealous of Lily Evans in her blue dress and straight for once in her life hair and four handsome dates. When boys from her own school asked her to dance Remus or Sirius or Peter or James would step in and swing her around the dance floor. The next week at school there was rumor Lily was shagging all four boys and she encouraged the rumor so much she started calling the four of them her boys and it just stuck.

One day she couldn't find James anywhere and she felt a huge hole in her heart. She never realized how much she depended on him or how much he meant to her. She wouldn't leave the Potter house until she found him. He had been on the roof the whole time smoking a cigarette because he thought he might be in love with Lily and if she didn't love him back he didn't know what he would do. When she found him she chucked the damn cigarette off the roof and told him if he ever smoked them again she would end their friendship and she didn't care that Sirius thought smoking was punk. He never smoked again.

She made Remus get a matching friendship bracelet with her one day at the mall. The other boys wanted to know why if they were her boys too they didn't have one and she bought them all matching bracelets that they never took off. James told her he fancied her by taking off his bracelet and when she asked why he said he fancied her a bit more than a friend so it didn't feel right to wear the bracelet. She kissed him so hard he thought he would never be able to let go but when she did he just wanted to do it again. The next week she got him a boyfriend bracelet and said he had to wear something to match the rest of them. He said he never asked her out and she shrugged and he kissed her. He told her he wanted her to be his girlfriend and she responded by sending him a video of a cat.


End file.
